This month a potpourri of mostly non-business items in this column.
For those of you who follow Mary and my cycling endeavors, I can report successful completion of not one, but two double century rides since my last column.
First, on mother’s day last month, we were blessed with back to back days of strong tail winds on our Tour of the Scioto River Valley (TOSRV) from Columbus to Portsmouth, Ohio and back (210 miles total). Some riders commented it was the best weather for TOSRV in its history, and was truly a breeze (pun intended).
Then, on the first weekend of June, we rode the Grove City CC Classic from Grove City to Cincinnati, Ohio and back (200 miles total). The ride down was easy enough with strong tail and cross winds. But, the ride back was another thing all together. 20 mile-per-hour headwinds slowed our pace to a crawl and made it tough just to keep going. Fortunately, it was a charity ride on behalf of the American Cancer Society, and we couldn’t let down the numerous friends and families who donated on our behalf. So we dug down deep in our personal bag of motivational tricks, and we made it! It will be our last ride for a while though.
A couple of upcoming staff changes I’d like to make you aware of. Starting this week, my son Bryan will be joining us nearly full-time for the summer. It’s his first real job, and he’s looking forward to programming, knocking down that big sale, and becoming an HTML wizard. Think again, buddy boy. We will be using him on the computer, but he’ll also get quite acquainted with the trash dumpster and vacuum cleaner.
And, starting in the fall, my wife Mary will be joining us as a part-time receptionist and girl-Friday. As the pace of life has picked up around here over the past couple of years, we’ve found it more difficult to keep up with the phones, mail, UPS’ing and filing, and we’re all looking forward to her pitching in to help.
If you run into either Bryan or Mary on the phones, please take a minute to say hello and make them feel welcome.
This past month also saw the departure of Tecca DeNero. She’s moved on to an outside sales position strictly within the Columbus area that promises to be an interesting change of pace for her. We wish her the best in her new endeavor.
Finally, we welcome Bob, Rose, Gregg, and Chad at Superior Welding Supply in Angola, Indiana as new customers.
–David J. Frea